Nitecap: An Exploratory Circadian Analysis Web Application. Issue 1 (February 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Brooks, Thomas G.; Mrčela, Antonijo; Lahens, Nicholas F.; Paschos, Georgios K.; Grosser, Tilo; Skarke, Carsten; FitzGerald, Garret A.; Grant, Gregory R.
• Is Part Of: Journal of biological rhythms. Volume 37:Issue 1(2022)
• Page Start: 43
• Page End: 52
• Publication Date: 2022-02
• Subjects: rhythmicity analysis -- circadian analysis -- web application -- visualization -- principal component analysis; Biological rhythms -- Periodicals; Circadian rhythms -- Periodicals; 571.77
• DOI: 10.1177/07487304211054408
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0748-7304

Abstract

Circadian omics analyses present investigators with large amounts of data to consider and many choices for methods of analysis. Visualization is crucial as rhythmicity can take many forms and p -values offer an incomplete picture. Yet statically viewing the entirety of high-throughput datasets is impractical, and there is often limited ability to assess the impact of choices, such as significance threshold cutoffs. Nitecap provides an intuitive and unified web-based solution to these problems. Through highly responsive visualizations, Nitecap enables investigators to see dataset-wide behavior. It supports deep analyses, including comparisons of two conditions. Moreover, it focuses upon ease-of-use and enables collaboration through dataset sharing. As an application, we investigated cross talk between peripheral clocks in adipose and liver tissues and determined that adipocyte clock disruption does not substantially modulate the transcriptional rhythmicity of liver but does advance the phase of core clock gene Bmal1 (Arntl) expression in the liver. Nitecap is available atnitecap.org and is free-to-use.